32 Flavors
by Sophia Bee
Summary: uploading some of my old Veronica Mars fics - songfic


(Squint your eyes and look closer)

He doesn't know how he made it to the first day of school. The night before he'd continued his drinking game, picking out liquor by the color on the label. He'd made it through everything with red and was working through anything that was green. Somehow Trina, tangled deeply in her own Madonna/whore complex, dragged his ass out of bed and now he was standing in the hallway of Neptune high, blinking under the fluorescent lights.

The air smelled like new sneakers and floor polish, the scent of dry erase markers floating by as teachers wrote their names across the shining white boards, clean from a summer of disuse.

His head hurt. It pounded like a mother fucker, an ice pick pressing into the front part of his skull and Logan rubbed his eyes again, wishing he was tucked deep under the 100% down comforter, sleeping the alcohol away until he could wake up and stumble to the liquor cabinet again. Today would have been blue.

His first period is advanced algebra, a hell of a way to start the day. He grips his backpack and tries to remember which hallway leads to the math classrooms. Students stream around him, girls with their new perfume and sparkling eye shadow, carefully applied for the first day of school. Boys with their crisp new t-shirts and artfully baggy pants. They whisper, clustering together, heads leaning toward each other as they tell the story of the boy whose father is sitting in jail, whose girlfriend's blood stained the concrete surrounding the Kane pool. Some claim to have even seen the stain. Logan ignores them and thinks about the flask he stashed deep in his backpack, counting the minutes until he can pull it out and let the liquor burn down the back of his throat. There was no way he was going to get through this day without numbing himself.

Then he sees her, standing in the doorway of the journalism room, one hip stuck out, her bag slung over her shoulder. Her hair is blonder and her skin is tan from a summer spent at the beach. If he didn't hate her so much he'd let himself remember how her skin felt under his fingertips. She looks at him and for a moment there is a flash of understanding but Logan quickly rejects it, shuts down, and pulls up all the hurt and betrayal that has burned in his gut for the entire summer. She turns away and he watches as she pretends to look for something in her bag.

(I'm beyond your peripheral vision)

She ends up being in physics with him and he wonders if he should ask to be removed from the class. He sits two seats in front of her but he can still see her in the corner of his eye. He watches the movement of her shoulders as they go up and down with each breath. He watches as she brings a hand up to idly scratch at the back of her neck. He can tell she can feel his eyes, looking through her skin and bones to the very space where he thinks her soul might reside. If she had one.

Bitch.

Even when he thinks the word he knows it's a lie.

He wonders what would happen if he turned his head and looked at her, let her see everything in his eyes, all the hurt and pain, the loss. What would happen if he let her see what he refuses to see himself; how much he misses her.

(Never forget where I came from)

He doesn't know where to sit at lunch. Logan balances a tray full of crappy cafeteria food he doesn't really want to eat and scans the tables. There's his old table, now captained by Dick Casablancas with Madison sitting coyly at his side. There's the jock table, which is being dominated by Wallace Fennel who is entertaining everyone with stories from summer basketball camp. There's only one empty table so Logan starts to walk toward it.

The whispers are still there as he pushes his way through the crowd, sly sideways glances to get a look at the son of the town killer. Logan holds his head high and swallows the fear that makes his hands tremble slightly.

He's almost to the table when Veronica sets her tray down with a clunk. Logan stops.

He sees her hands at the edge of the table. He sees the pink skin on the backs, healing burns from three months ago. He wants to pull back the long sleeves of her shirt and look at her scars and kiss her healing skin. He wants to tell her how sorry he is.

They ran out of words a long time ago. The last they said to each other was that day on the beach, the air salty and damp. He could still remember how the sand had stuck in the corner of his eyes and he'd rubbed at them as he stood at the edge of water, trying not to turn around so he could watch her walk away.

Logan turns away. He doesn't see her hand come up, her mouth open then close as she reaches out for him.

(You might want to turn your head)

The first bottle with a blue label is Vanilla Stoli. Its sweetness doesn't disguise the burn as Logan takes a swallow and holds back a cough, eyes watering.

"How was school, little brother?" Trina's voice is saccharine sweet as she leans over the back of the couch and smiles at him.

"Fuck you." Logan mutters and takes another drink. The numbness can't come soon enough and he longs for the moment when everything is swaying and he finds it hard to push himself up from the cream imported Italian leather couch Lynn had picked out after a trip to Milan.

"Did you see her?"

Logan is about to take another swallow but Trina's words stop him before he can bring the bottle to his lips. He tilts his head and looks at her.

"Fuck. You."

It seems like the only thing he can say to her these days. Everything else is meaningless, just empty words that can't describe the crumbling ruins of their life. The only thing he has left for anyone is hostility and anger.

"She called."

Trina walks away and leaves Logan staring into the silence of the living room, the bottle forgotten on the immaculate white carpet.

(Everyone harbors a secret hatred)

Logan Echolls hates his father. It's not hard to hate someone when you can point to specific scars on your body and tell exactly how he made them. It's not hard to hate someone who left cuts on your back and cigarette burns on your thighs. It's not hard to hate someone who knew all the places to leave his mark that could be easily covered, easily concealed from the world's prying eyes.

Lilly was just the topping on the sundae that was Logan's life. At first she was sweet. She made everything nice, in the same way that caramel sauce makes vanilla ice cream just that much better. Logan had learned a long time ago that he would pay for anything good in his life. He didn't know how much he'd pay for Lilly.

He only learned her price the day he turned on the television and discovered someone had leaked the Lilly Kane sex tapes. He couldn't turn the channel as he watched his father fuck Lilly, listened to her giggle, watched the way her mouth formed around the word 'lover'. It was torture but Logan didn't want to stop it. He liked the pain of Lilly and her betrayal.

It was easy to hate Lilly too. It's almost as easy as breathing or bringing to bottle back to his lips to let the liquor burn the way that Lilly burned.

Most of all, Logan hates himself. He wants to make himself hurt, to feel enough pain outside that everything inside would pale in comparison. He punches the wall of his bedroom until his fist tingles, holds his mom's lighter to his palm until tears leak from the edges of his eyes. He drinks until he pukes into the toilet over and over, his stomach muscles heaving as he throws up stomach juices of bits of lining. Nothing takes away the pain that knots his stomach in the middle of the night. Nothing makes him hate himself less.

Now he hates himself for caring that she called. He's told himself over and over that he hates her as well. Hates how she thought he killed Lilly. Hates how she never trusted him. Hates how she lied to him.

He especially hates how he still misses her.

"Fuck you." Logan yells his mantra into the emptiness of his living room. He picks up the bottle from the carpet and takes another swallow then stands up from where he's been sitting for the last hour and feels in his pocket for his car keys.

(Taking my chances as they come)

Logan stands outside the door of her apartment. He thinks about the other times he's been here. How he paced outside the first time, practicing what he was going to say, wondering how he was going to ask the girl he'd tortured for a year and a half for help.

He'd expected her to laugh, to tell him to go to hell. Why would she care about his mother, about his feeling that she just couldn't be dead? Why should she care when he'd done everything in his power to build up her reputation as school slut, done whatever he could to make her hurt as much as him for Lilly's death.

She didn't laugh. She let him in.

He remembers the look on her face as she cracked open the door the night after she'd ditched him and how pissed off he'd been until he saw how fragile she looked. He remembers her words, accusations and how each one had ripped him apart and he promised himself he'd make whoever had hurt her pay. He knew the best ways to hurt someone courtesy of his matinee idol father.

He remembers how she'd taken his hands in hers. They were so small compared to his but he knew their size disguised the strength behind him. He remembered how she'd smelled of cinnamon as she leaned toward him and told him she was sorry, told him she'd never been raped. He remembers the ice that had run through his veins as she told him she'd slept with Duncan and he realized his part.

He remembers how much he loved her in that moment.

"Logan?"

His head jerks up at the sound of her voice. She's standing at the doorway wearing pajama bottoms and a tank top. He looks at her; takes in every detail from her slightly messy hair to the way her hand trembles as she grips the doorjamb. Her eyes search his, looking for an answer, or a question, or anything that will allow them to overcome the mistrust and anger that hangs between them.

"I hate you." He finally manages to say, the catch in his voice betraying his lie. Veronica steps forward and lets the door close behind her. She's too close but Logan can't move.

"I know." She says and Logan knows she's talking about something else, something unsaid that lingers in the air. She's even closer, her bare feet padding across the rough cement.

"I'm drunk."

Her hand is on his arm and he flinches at her touch, at the shot of electricity it sends through his spine. Logan turns his head away from her and stares at the ground.

"I know."

She's centimeters away now and he can feel the heat of her skin, smell her hair, and her arms are wrapping around his neck. Her lips are pressing against his collarbone. Her hips are pushing against him and Logan swallows a gasp.

"I need you." He whispers into her hair.

"I know."

She's kissing him and Logan's arms wrap around her back and pull her closer, wanting to feel every inch of her pressed against him. Her tongue slips inside his mouth and tangles with his, and then he's kissing her back, devouring her, memorizing the way she tastes. He pulls back and rests his forehead against hers, eyes closed, her breath hot against his face.

"I love you." Logan whispers.

Veronica says nothing. She lifts her head and kisses him again and her hands find the button on his jeans and she starts undoing them, fingers hot against the skin of his belly.

(I'm not trying to give my life meaning)

He fucks her in the back seat of his car.

He kneels between her spread knees, fumbling with the condom he'd pulled out his wallet. She kisses him like his mouth is oxygen, devours him like he's ice cream on a hot day. Her mouth is swollen as she pants beneath him. When he thinks he can't take it anymore she wraps her arms around his neck and whispers in his ear.

"Let it go."

And he does.

Afterward they lie plastered to each other and Logan tries to tell her everything he can't find the words for by tracing along her shoulder with small butterfly kisses.

"This doesn't change anything." Veronica says, tangling her fingers in his hair and tracing the shell of his ear with her tongue.

"I know." Logan lies.

They both know it changes everything.

For the first time since that night, the first time since he stood on the edge of the bridge and thought about finding the same peace his mother had craved, Logan doesn't feel pain, just the foreign feeling of contentment. Maybe even happiness, except that Logan's forgotten what that actually feels like.

"I can't save you." Veronica whispers against his neck as she traces his edges with her mouth, tasting his skin.

"I don't want you to."

They are quiet for a long while, just hold onto each other, breathing in time with each other. Then Veronica speaks again, her voice sounding strange, choked, in the silence of his car.

"I did everything that I could..."

He knows she not just talking about them, about this fucked up, fucking brilliant, crazy thing that keeps them crawling back to each other. She's talking about everything. About Lilly, Aaron and Duncan. She's talking about her need to find Lilly's real killer. She's talking about how her need to find the truth caused her to hurt him more than anyone else.

Veronica Mars had never done anything less than everything she could possibly do.

(I am)

For the first time Logan doesn't wish he'd died with Lilly. He doesn't wish it was his bits of flesh and bone and hair dried all over that ashtray, his blood that stained the concrete.

He'll never tell her. No one wants to hear that they're the one who saved another soul. It's too much responsibility. He'll find other ways to let her know. The way he holds her, the way he kisses the side of her neck. He'll watch her when she sleeps and trace love songs across the soft skin of her hip as they lay tangled in each other's arms.

He doesn't remember when he stops drinking. There's just some random point when he realizes he doesn't need it anymore. He doesn't remember when he stops needing the pain, stops burning his skin, finding new ways to make himself bleed. He can't pinpoint the moment he stops hating himself.

Everything is built on lies and deception of the purest sort with the best intentions and Logan knows that it will all tumble down someday soon.

They meet at night, mouths coming together with almost unbearable heat, limbs tangling as they roll across the sheets of his bed. No one talks about the future. No one makes plans. They just fuck each other and he pretends not to see the tears that leak from under her lids as she comes undone, straddled across his hips with him buried deep inside her. She pretends not to understand the whispers against her skin as he tells her over and over how much he loves her.

The End


End file.
